Ottoman Deli Cavalry

With my return from my hospital holiday I have finished the work on the unit of Deli light cavalry that I started before Christmas.

Usually volunteers of Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian descent the Delis were known for their ferocity in battle. Some sources state that the name Deli meant "mad head" from their fanatical approach to fighting.

W.I.A.

The New Year has not started well for me. On 2 January, I had some chest discomfort and went to the E.R. where they ran an ECG that showed irregularities. An Angiogram showed no blockages and no need for a stent, but there is still something not right...the official description is that it may be myocarditis or 'something else'. More questions, scanning, poking and prodding will be required to get to the bottom it all. The good thing is that I feel perfectly well and am in no discomfort, but it is not how I expected to spend my last day of my holiday...

Meanwhile I will be MIA for a few more days and that unit of Ottoman Turk cavalry that is two-thirds completed on the painting tray will remain incomplete a while longer.

The absolute positive is that I can catch up on the reading backlog and have started with Michael Leggiere's The Fall of Napoleon: The Allied Invasion of France, 1813–1814.

2023 - the Year in Review

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

When I was younger, so much younger than today...oh no...that's a line from a Beatles song...

I remember as a young lad thinking "in the year 2000 I'll be 42...I'll be so old..." I also remember predictions that there would be human habitation on the moon and Mars by 2020 and the fiction that was Star Trek seemed a real possibility. Yet here we are at the beginning of 2024. I am still here, I don't feel all that old (except when my sciatic nerve gives me jip), there are no humans living on the moon, Mars or beyond, and NNC-1701 (the starship Enterprise) is still a figment of a Hollywood imagination.

As usual for my first post of the year I am doing my annual wrap up. So what were the results of 2023? Well, down on 2022, but that was expected.

Seven projects were worked:

• Ottoman Turks - started
• ACW - some artillery sets added
• Napoleonic Prussians - completed with two grenadier battalions added
• Napoleonic Russians - completed with six battalions of grenadiers added
• Napoleonic Austrians - a full force added, almost complete
• FPW Prussians - all infantry, cavalry and artillery completed
• FPW French - all infantry, and artillery completed, cavalry started

The total count was 1,423 foot, 132 mounted, 34 guns and 52 pieces of terrain and equipment.

Adjusting this through the usual points system (5 for foot, 10 for mounted, guns and equipment and 10 for every hour of scratch build work) this gives a total of 9,695 compared to 11,510 from last year a drop of 15.8%. The full breakdown is below.

The Franco-Prussian French make up the bulk of the work, followed by the Austrian Napoleonics.

 

The number of games was less than last year at 18, with a broad range including Cruel Seas, Paraguayan War, WWII, ACW, Napoleonic, AWI, FPW, western gunfights, Crimean War, 100 Years War, Spanish Civil War, Sudan War and WWI Aircraft.

Checking the Google statistics I see that the number of posts has reached 887 (120 this year), followers have gone up about 30, comments just under 11,000 and the visitor count exceeds 544,000 -  although I note from dramatic spike in visitors in the last month that the bots are back.

So what is to be expected in 2024? A greatly reduced volume of production for one. With retirement just around the corner and the prospect of a drop of household income by two thirds, something has to give and that will be any expansion into any new periods. I also need to take into consideration is that the collection now consists of 15,439 foot figures, 2,376 mounted figures, 306 guns, 197 pieces of equipment and a couple hundred of other bits stored in 179 storage drawers and boxes (and I am not going to think about all the terrain pieces)...I reckon that that is probably enough...in fact some items that have never been outside the box since I finished them may be "let go".

While the days of big purchases are over some existing projects will be completed:

• Franco-Prussians some French cavalry and generals for both sides are needed.
• The Ottoman Napoleonics - I have most of the figures on hand, but there are a few items missing like commanders and artillery.
• Two battalions of Austrian Grenadiers are in the wings.
• A couple of stands of ACW horse holders are lurking near the painting tray.

There we are...here's wishing all a great start to the New Year.

A Few Days in the Tropics

While it is now official summer in New Zealand, Christmas weather has been far from summery. Sure it has been warm, with parts of the country recording 30 + degree (C) temperatures, but the build up to Christmas has been wet. We had heavy rain on Christmas Eve and drizzle on the main day. 

Thankfully I agreed to the Domestic Controller's request to go to Fiji for a few days - our first time in Fiji since 2019. So we flew out mid-morning on Tuesday and by 1:00 PM we were in the pool under clear blue skies in 33 C temperatures. 

It is just a few days by a pool swimming, kayaking (in the ocean not the pool), catching up on some of the reading backlog and eating and drinking way too much.

Clearly we weren’t the only ones that needed a post-Christmas rest…

I always wondered where he went for a bit R & R after the event. And obviously he has worked the reindeer to the bone…I caught this group grazing under the palm trees.

It’s a tough sacrifice to be sure, but I’ll be back to the painting desk and the terrain workbench soon enough.

Over the Hills...A Couple of Christmas Eve Projects

For many years now I have made a habit of not leaving the property on Christmas Eve. It's just too crazy out there. It was bad enough doing the food shop yesterday - we went out as early as we could, but it was chaotically busy and as usual the price of the great New Zealand Christmas standards of strawberries, raspberries and cherries were through the roof. Thankfully we planted some raspberry canes a couple of years back and we will be feasting on homegrown raspberries and blueberries tomorrow. Most of my chores and tasks were sorted on Saturday and this had left me time to revisit some long neglected projects.

Towards the end of January 2022 I completed the larger part of my terrain tile project. Since then the last five frames have sat unassembled on my desk while I tried to figure out what feature to put into them. In the last few weeks I have thought that I need to have an area of coastline for naval landings. The five frames will be: an estuary linking to existing river sections, three straight beach sections and one end piece.

The basic frame required a unique profile to go from ground level to sea level.

Above are the first two tiles: the estuary on the left and a straight on the right. In this state they will have to remain for a while until the glue has set and some more time is available.

Also on the work plan is a series of hills that will sit on top of the tiles. I decided on this because creating  tiles with hills on them would create too great an inventory and at any rate placing the hill on top of the surface had the added advantage of concealing the joint between the tiles, helping to remove the checkerboard appearance. I had made a sample hill a couple of years ago (below) and that convinced me that this was the way to go.

I had purchased a piece of 4.75mm MDF for the hill bases some time ago and it has been sitting idle ever since, so I marked up an array of sizes and shapes - with one 600mm ridge, a couple 450mm long some at 300mm and some at 200mm. One or two of them are destined to become steep hills.

The pieces were then cut from the sheet with the jigsaw.

Then using the forms as templates the polystyrene was marked out.

Next I rough cut the polystyrene with the wire cutter.

I then angled the edge of one of the bases with a rasp to around 30 degrees, deliberately leaving the edge rough - this roughness will hold the glue better when the felt is fastened at a later stage.

The polystyrene was then glued on to the base and shaped with the wire cutter.

There the project will pause for a few days over Christmas.

These are the first of several terrain oriented projects over summer.

So, as I sit here with the rain pouring down and the Christmas lights blinking in the evening gloom I raise my glass of Pinot Gris and say Merry Christmas to all!

Temporary Halt to the FPW Project

With the completion of the last few infantry figures the FPW project has come to a halt because I have now completed everything in this project except for items not yet released.

With the project on hold and no more red pants to paint, an engineer turns off the red paint pipeline.

The last few French painted were some skirmish stands and seven spare officer figures (some of which will be used for artillery commanders). Most of the officers have had additions from other ranges - the revolver hand comes from one of the ACW sets and the binoculars come from the Warlord WWII German Blitzkrieg set...it is so nice to have a big box of bits and bobs left over from various plastics sets.

In recapitulation the completed FPW components are:

Prussians

• 2 x  mounted generals
• 2 regiments of cuirassiers 
• 2 regiments of uhlans
• 2 regiments of dragoons
• 5 regiments of hussars
• 1 battalion of Jägers
• 24 battalions of line infantry
• 18 skirmish bases
• 6 light field batteries 
• 6 heavy field batteries
• 4 horse batteries

Total: 146 mounted, 683 foot and 16 guns

French

• 4 mounted generals
• 11 foot generals/colonels
• 2 regiments chasseurs à Cheval
• 3 battalions chasseurs à pied
• 36 line infantry battalions
• 18 skirmish stands
• 8 light field artillery batteries
• 4 light horse artillery batteries
• 3 mitrailleuse batteries
• 2 heavy field batteries

Total: 28 mounted, 798 foot and 17 guns

Needed to finish the collection:

16 Prussian mounted officers

20 French mounted officers

24 French dragoons

48 French cuirassiers

But we need a parade...and so here is the complete French 2nd Corps (with the exception of those items mentioned above). Arranged left to right are 1st, 2nd and 3rd divisions, with the Chasseur à Cheval brigade and the reserve artillery to the right rear.

The Last of the French Reserve Artillery

So the French artillery is finished. With these two batteries, Captain Petelle's 10/5e batterie de 4 and  Captain Calemard du Genestoux's 6/15e batterie de 4 the 2nd Corpe reserve artillery is completed.

All six batteries of the reserve, the light field batteries on the left, the horse batteries in the centre and the heavies on the right

What does the entire artillery complement of the 2nd Cotps look like...well...

The reserve on the left then to the right the guns of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Divisions